Buddhist Eschatology and 2012

Happy weekend, dark passengers. Apologies for being late on our first post in our year + series on why the Mayan calendar is bent on killing us in 2012. For some reason, taking a nap seemed like a good idea when I got home Friday and it morphed into just going to bed for the night extremely early. Sometimes, sleep wins, I guess.

Anyway. As we begin our look at possible events and cataclysms for December 21, 2012, I think it’s important to mix in a bit of information on why various groups believe something big – perhaps even the end of the world – is heading our way. This means it’s time to delve into the wonderful world of eschatology.

Um, yeah…what’s eschatology? So glad you asked.

Eschatology is the study of the end. For some, it’s the end of an age. For the others, the end of mankind or the world itself. Doomsday and apocalypse scenarios enter the picture once you bring spiritual beliefs into the mix.

Crash Course in Buddhist Eschatology

Before I begin, I need to be really honest…My research has turned up a bunch of information without any sort of cited references. Could be true beliefs; could be made up and misinterpreted junk. Hard to say. So let’s dig in anyway with a grain or two of salt.

There’s a Buddhist belief that as their teachings fade away, society will slip from morality to a state of amoral existence. When this happens, mankind will begin to show 10 primary traits:

Abusive and/or idle talk

Adultry

Covetous/ill will

Evil speaking

Lying

Murder

Perverted lust

Theft

Violence

Wanton greed.

These actions lead to excessive poverty and a general decline in the quality of life, or skillful behavior. Anyone in the crowd care to argue that we aren’t nearing this point, if we aren’t already there? Didn’t think so.

That we’d be unable to survive at this level of moral decay for much longer can make a strong case towards 2012 being the end of life as we know it…

Part of the Buddhist Eschatology believes that our lifespan as a whole will decline as our actions move towards the amoral side of the scale. While the first Buddha was said to live for 80,000 years and be crazy tall, we live about a century and stand in the 5-6 foot range. Of course, I thought technology was increasing our current life expectancy, but I guess it could be about to do a rapid U-turn.

The age at which we reach sexual maturity is said to be another indicator of our decline. Maturing at a younger age is a sign in the downward slide of society’s morality and behavior. This will continue hitting kids at increasingly younger ages until they sexually mature at 5 and live about a decade. Then it gets weird. Because it wasn’t already strange, right?

When human lifespans can decrease no further, swords appear in our hands and we go on a massive killing spree to wipe out humanity. Unless you take your sword and hide. When all the fighters are gone, the survivors will return to the purest way of life, kiss their wrongs goodbye and they’ll live longer and longer until people are back to 80,000 year lives.

Personally, I don’t want to live that long. After the first 40,000 years, you’ve seen it all…

How Buddhist Eschatology May Play into 2012 Paranoia

Clearly, we probably won’t see the magic appearance of swords in our lifetime, but on a scale of not exuding any of the no-no traits and only showing them…I’d say we’re doing pretty bad at the moment.

Now, even if my findings don’t give an accurate picture of Buddhist end of the world beliefs, the information (or misinformation) is still out there and easy to find online. If I’m Buddhist, but not really that knowledgeable about all the ins and outs of things, I might ask my pal Google what Buddhists think the end of days will be like. And Google might just tell me I’m going to have a sword appear in my hand and have to fight to the death with all of humanity. (Uh…crap. I forgot to take swordsmanship classes in school…)

Maybe I’m just trying to find out as much about the end of the world as quickly as I can because I’ve heard one too many people freaking out over the Mayan calendar ending. Is it rational to think swords will appear in our hands on December 21, 2012? Probably not, but if you skip all the lifespan stuff and you’re already stocking your doomsday shelter…Maybe.

Did you want the good news now?

If we choose to believe Buddhist Eschatology (and this is even correct), the world doesn’t end. Humanity doesn’t fade from existence like a failed project held on the planet. Life, in all forms, goes on. We screwed up as a species, yet we get a second chance to do it right…just not all of us. If you’re a damn good hider, you can help form a shiny new society.

As far as 2012 speculation goes, that’s something at least. Next week, we’ll talk about a fringe theory where not even cockroaches and Styrofoam get to survive. If you’ve been missing my lunatic ramblings, this is one not to miss…because it came to me while watching something on the History Channel last night that wasn’t 2012-related. It’s even better than a pole shift (which we’ll cover later).

For now, if there are any Buddhists in the house who know your end of days stuff, pop on down to the comments and fill us in on what you believe, won’t you? And everyone else…Are swords on December 21, 2012 possible in your view?

Jen Whitten is a paranormal researcher and writer, specializing in psychic development, Empaths, modern day vampirism and dealing with entities. She regularly discusses the paranormal realm, as well as the dark inner workings of the mind.

Comments

Not a Buddhist, so I cannot help you with accuracy. However, despite what we seem to believe in general, our lives (at least in the US and other developed places in the world) are FAR better than they used to be. Try being poor (i.e., not one of the 5% of the population who has wealth) in the middle ages, and you have a constant battle with disentery, starvation, rape (if a woman), and all sorts of other means of death. Killing has become more mechanized, but killing happened a LOT back then, too. The rich preyed upon the poor. Bad people got away with hurting good people.

I guess that’s why I’m not a fatalist. Life isn’t great, but I’m not sure we’re any less moral than we used to be. I’m not sure our society is getting any worse. How does Henry VIII compare to Bill Clinton? Lechery isn’t a new idea, by any means.

Fascinating post, though. I think I’ll be one of the hiders. Not about to go around slaying people.
.-= Shakespeare´s last blog ..The Race =-.

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Jen Whitten is a paranormal researcher and writer, specializing in psychic development, Empaths, modern day vampirism and dealing with entities. She regularly discusses the paranormal realm, as well as the dark inner workings of the mind. [Read More …]